


Welcome to the 2019 #Squadghouls Pumpking Carving Extrazaganza

by manspirations



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Bad Flirting, Carving pumpkins, Crack, House Liam, Humor, M/M, Pre-Slash, Thiam House of Horrors, pizza delivery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-01
Updated: 2019-11-01
Packaged: 2021-01-16 02:50:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21263858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manspirations/pseuds/manspirations
Summary: All Liam wants to do on Halloween is destress from Midterms and win $100 dollars in a Pumpkin Carving Contest. How hard could that be? Apparently, excruciatingly when you have attractive Pizza Delivery guys barging into your Apartment as they please.Written for the Thiam House of Horrors Halloween Event (Carving Pumpkins)(House Liam for the Win!)---“At least fatten me up before you throw me on the spick,” he snorted back, more amused than alarmed. Nothing about them truly shouted, ‘Your-sacrifices-will-be-remembered’ other than the wisp of feminine squeals floating above their heads.“Fatten yourself.” The guy flipped back, his eyes too peeled on the ongoings of their kinky seance to pay attention to Theo. What self-respecting Pizza Delivery guy would he be if he let that continue?“Mmm,” his gaze trickled over the guy’s body, pajama bottoms too tight for a lazy night at home. He absolutely agreed with the style choice. “Keep walking like that and I will.” The guy tripped over the boldness of his comment and honestly, that plus the sour blush was all the Tip he needed from this transaction, “Not that this isn’t mildly entertaining and all, but can I get a signature on this or wh-”





	Welcome to the 2019 #Squadghouls Pumpking Carving Extrazaganza

People have curated the fine art of traditions for centuries. Pitchy door to door Carols on Christmas Eve. Heated family dinners before the sun gave up on Thanksgiving. Fireworks bursting you from precious sleep once the clock struck July Fourth. Even, traditions as mind-numbing as Sunday grocery runs, checkout lines no less than three Van-packed families and seven irritable college students deep. Liam was sure if he took a poll around the world, everyone would agree. Traditions worked. It was only when people tried to fuck with them that dysfunction broke loose. And feelings.

“Yo, can’t nobody top this genius,” Mason’s voice ricochetted around their already minuscule apartment. Liam didn’t have to look his way to see the sliver glint of Mason’s carving knife stabbing the air. He knew it to be so, just like how he knew whatever masterpiece Mason _thought _he was crafting onto his wilting Pumpkin was something other than wobbly triangles.

“Nobodies trying to,” Corey threw back over his own _squick-stab-scritch. _

Liam hummed his agreement, simply content enough to stab away the woes of Midterms. The same as he’d done for the past two years on October 31st. He needed this night to survive the next five days. He needed the comfortable laughter and Mason’s obnoxious peacocking and the palpable shreds of pumpkin sliding through his fingers. The buffet of Caramel Popcorn, Value Candy Bags, Mason’s ghastly Apple Schnapps slushies, and very very soon, the best Pizza Cal State had to offer.

Liam needed this when literally every one of their neighbors was gearing up for the night of debauchery to come. Call him lame. Call him a loser. Whatever.

“Fuck, sometimes I impress even myself,” Mason said again, this time with a low whistle.

Liam snorted, “You do this every year. No one is picking your bare minimum design.”

“Your mom will,” Mason wiggled his brushy eyebrows. “All I gotta do is tell her I love her best.”

“Ohhh, sooo 1 out of how many?” He turned to Corey, watching the count of voters they’d acquired over the years roll through his head.

“Ten.”

Liam flicked his scalpel, “Exactly, 10. And since traitor who shall not be named–”

“–Brett–” Mason helpfully supplied.

“—_Traitor who shall NOT be named _bailed like a douchebag, it’s me or Corey.”

Mason puckered his lips as if that conveyed all the message he and Corey needed to know. Then, his head shook, smirking, “–Just you wait. Just you wait.”

Both he and Corey shared an exasperated look over Mason’s head, equal parts fond and comical. A mixture of 80s Rap from next door and the Bob’s Burgers Halloween special battled to swarm the silence as they cut and sculpted and cut.

None of them needed to look at the microwave timer to feel the intensity of its end breathing down their necks. Every year, all ten of their judges (aka various Parents, Uncles, Aunts, and distant Cousins) threw $10 each in a pot for a Visa Gift Card. Designer of the Most Popular Pumpkin ate like royalty the last month of school. Liam was born to eat like royalty. Liam _was born royalty. _

“TEN MINUTES!” Nolan yelled from the kitchen, the reediness of his voice physically jolting a shiver out of him. His pumpkin teetered on the edge of his thigh from the motion, only deciding to flop over to their white carpet after Liam won in the struggle to right it. Normally so quiet Liam reminded himself to buy him a cowbell for the holidays, Nolan clicked his teeth as he rustled another conquered page of his Chem book.

Nolan was new this year, the only one of his two roommates with nothing to do on Halloween night besides study and mope. His only purpose was to be their unbiased timekeeper at least when Liam could remember he was here and even then, he abhorred every one of those seconds. _See, traditions._ "Fuck, can you not–”

“I mean–I can leave,” Nolan tossed a wistful glance to his closed bedroom door, right off the kitchen island, “Not like I don’t have 50 pages tonight.”

“NO!” Both Mason and Corey blurted, Corey following that up with a calmer, “Liam, play nice with your roommate. We need him.”

Liam spared a single grumble; he’d rather focus his energy on $100 dollars worth of Panda Express clogging his youthful arteries. The idea came to him at 4 AM mere weeks ago when sleep was too restless to hold him captive. His epiphany: why be like every other mind-numbing human and cut boring designs into 25% of a pumpkin’s surface when he could make his pumpkin, the design.

_Oh yes, iHOP all day._ Liam kept his back to his friends, plucking another geometric shape from his almost finishing product. His excitement was starting to spike, fissuring a bright flare thicker than the fluorescent light above them.

“5 MINUTES!”

Hands sped. Fingers tutted pumpkin guts and depleted skin. Money rumbled through their minds like a wave. Until finally, _beep beep beep. _

“Weapons down,” Mason cried, despite the clumps of pumpkin puss still squished in his palms. Of course, if he and Corey hadn’t immediately dropped their picks, his best friend would cry petty foul. Such a sore loser. A sore loser with Zero effort. Each of them shielded their prize-winning masterpieces, backs too stiff to even consider getting up to turn off the lights and risk unveiling prematurely.

Eventually, after they death-glared each other—western stand off style—Nolan huffed a dramatic sigh and threw the empty Coffee canister above Corey’s head. Darkness descended with a bang, only the errant rasps of their breathing and the flickers of Bob’s Burgers slicing the new abyss. Still no one moved.

“Oh my god. Yall are babies.” Nolan. “On three. 1…2…”

Liam followed their rustling, his eyes finally having adjusted in the darkness. Sitting his pumpkin in it’s normal place, right side nearest the love seat, he stepped back for Nolan to drop the candles The final touch.

The Judging Round was simple: five minutes Live in their combined #squadghouls Facetime and 10 separate completely bias choices to follow. Anticipation stole a decade off his life as Nolan stole the other. If he wanted, he could officially count the seconds it took the guy to light three measly candles. How hard could it be? _Switch on. Switch off. _Simple.

He groaned, “Hurry up already.”

“Can I have disqualification powers?” Nolan’s shadow asked Corey. Corey’s shifted interestingly as if to consider such an atrocity.

“You’re not even _supposed _to be here tonight! Can we just get on with it–-Zaxbys is calling me.”

“–You mean it’s calling me._ Maaa-sssooon. Maassoon._”

His mouth opened for rebuttal, but Corey cut him off with a ‘be the mature one’ side-eye. For the first time in #squadghouls history, he became the mature one. The Live initiation took another three minutes of both Corey and Mason searching for Mason’s phone in the dark and scrolling through an unnecessary amount of pages to find Facetime. What sane-minded Millennial couldn’t find that within the first two swipes, if not parked on the bottom row of favorite. He was just about ready to call the whole thing off when finally, _finally, _Mason’s enthusiastic intro grazed the darkness. Their family popped in like small-talking dominoes.

_“Can you hear me? Can you see me?”_

_“It’s dark, did we miss it already?!” _

_“Robert, Robert, come see Cor! He’s on the phone.”_

_“–Ugh, these losers again. [Tamra, be nice. College is for self-expression, you’ll see]”_

One after the other. Until he audibly counted more than eight distinct voices. _Five Guys, here I come._

They always turned the Master of Ceremonies over to Mason, with his uncanny ability to smooch even the toughest of family members. Among this group of pliable softies, Mason molded them like slime in a third graders hands.

Liam smiled and waved appropriately as Mason shifted the lens around the darkened room. His appearance probably the only ‘I’m alive’ confirmation his third of their posse would get until Thanksgiving.

“Now for what we’ve all been waiting for. Corey, Noley drum rolls please. Your candidates for the #squad-ghouls 2019 Pumpkin Carvin’ Extrazaganza are as followed…..”

Drums rolled. His heart rate spiked, the moment almost nigh.

Doorbell. _Dammit. _Liam missed the moment fire illuminated decorative shadows upon their usually bleak walls. The moment he lived for, lost forever to the shift of his head and what foolishness lied beyond the door. Bitter, his legs carried him to the door, yanking it with enough force to rattle the hinges.

“WHA-Oh, you.”

The guy raised a single sculpted brow, so lethargic he could have filmed it in slow motion. All the rest of him waited stock still, even the pizza insulator thing draped indifferently over his right hand. Immediately, Liam noted the guy managed to look equally like every late night Pizza Delivery guy ever and something despicably…intriguing. And, he knew it too. Liam’s scowl cut deeper as a smirk overtook the dude’s bored indifference.

“Expecting a hot date, cowboy?”

_“_Cowboy?” The word washed down like Sensodene, meaning with a gulp and an immediate gag.

Behind them a muffled voice was praising one of their designs, the ones the Liam had yet to see for himself. None of them were going to win on his watch. Even if he had to play Mason’s game himself to prevent it.

It’s crazy how quickly tradition often lures you to failure. One minute you’re carving pumpkins with your best buds about to win yourself free food for the second year in a row. The next a stranger’s wrist is trapped in your tight grip and you’re yanking him into the privacy of your own him. Tradition works until it doesn’t.

—

If Theo could sum up his week: shitty, monotonous, droning, the saddest use of student loans in existence would do the trick. Eleven words and none of them truly captured the energy sucking spiral of work, school, work, easy mac, occasionally boring tinder fuck, more school, maybe more easy mac. The latter only if he wanted to sacrifice the rations of tomorrow’s routine.

None of those actions included being dragged into what was obviously a seance by Tiny Angry Hottie. Or Tiny Angry Hottie with a Body, as Kira would have said if she would have been here, completing her own route instead of Theo.

“_Shhh, quiet_,” The guy hissed, pulling him deeper into the darkened room. Several feet away from the circle of other bros, all Theo could make out was the dancing embers of shadows on their bare walls.

“At least fatten me up before you throw me on the spick,” he scoffed back, more amused than alarmed. Nothing about them truly shouted, ‘Your-sacrifices-will-be-remembered’ other than the wisp of feminine squeals floating above their heads.

“Fatten yourself.” The guy flipped back, his eyes too peeled on the ongoings of their kinky seance to pay attention to Theo. What self-respecting Pizza Delivery guy would he be if he let that continue?

“Mmm,” his gaze trickled over the guy’s body, pajama bottoms too tight for a lazy night at home. He absolutely agreed with the style choice. “Keep walking like that and I will.” The guy tripped over the boldness of his comment and honestly, that plus the sour blush was all the Tip he needed from this transaction, “Not that this isn’t mildly entertaining and all, but can I get a signature on this or wh-”

“Jenna, the light of my life!” The chattier guy in the group started gushing, “I absolutely believe in your ability to choose the best Pumpkin in the room. I always thought we had the same sense of humor. Like minds, like minds.”

_Pumpkins? _Intrigue gravitated him toward the heat, toastier than a wilting bonfire in the woods. Poking his head over Tiny Angry Kitten’s shoulder, he finally got a glimpse of the seance. Three Pumpkins, each definitely decorated by bodies with two much time on their fucking hands. _Ha., hands. _Kitten tried to buck him off, but Theo steadfast, marveling at the intricate designs in front of them. It wasn’t like they hadn’t skipped at least six crucial steps in this relationship anyway.

Jenna, whoever she was, gave a hearty little laugh, sounding more like white noise from his end of the witch circle. 

“Did you make one, Kitten?”

The guy glanced at him confused for a second before he righted his face into the disgust Theo was noting he held so dearly, “–Why are you still here?”

“You must not remember kidnapping me? Your grabby hands all over my hot little stranger body–”

Another guy across for them, thin as a light post, freckles gleaming crimson in the flickering candlelight cackled. He had avoided meeting his eyes vehemently since Theo crashed the party, but he could tell by the tense set of his shoulders, the tight grip of his hands that this was the roommate and roommate didn’t share Kitten’s openness to strangers. Never one to back down, Theo stared at his forehead until the guy muscled up the courage to actually look him in the eye. He winked.

“Don’t flirt with my roommate.”

“Just the roommate?”

More of that glorious blush. He praised the heavens this was his final stop for tonight because not even 8.00/an hour would pull him from seeing how deep that flush went. Even if it took him all night long. _Especially if it took him all night long. _

Kitten gave him a sigh that could sink the Titanic, “You were _supposed _to stop wasting my time, drop the pizzas, and go.”

“It’s lucky for you that I didn’t, huh?” He leaned in closer, pushing the boundaries Kitten had already set by his earlier intrusiveness. A part of him, not fried by the copious amounts of processed cheese,

Two breaths passed. Then another. “_Whatever. _Just don’t ruin my streak. It’s Tradition.”

“Can’t ruin anything I don’t understand, Kit.” Even though, he was swiftly starting too. The Chatty One, The Quiet One, and Kit carved some Pumpkins. The various Middle Aged Ones were brought in to judge. And the Shy One was here for…some other reason he couldn’t entirely foresee. Prize to be determined. Guaranteed, not the weirdest thing he’d witnessed tonight. He still couldn’t unsee the girl with all the cats.

“Alright all votes are in. That’s 3 for Me,” Charming McChatty boasted clearly pointing to the less detailed one of the two. “3 for Cor,” Chatty gazed upon the silent amusement from the boy in blue, which left, “…and 3 for Liam. Dammit, we’re missing one. Mom, where’s Uncle Maceo?”

_Liam. Liam. _He looked exactly like a Liam, equal bits soft and prickly. Liam grumbled much to Theo’s cheeky victory. “You!” He wasn’t proud of how long it took him to realize “you” was actually “me.” All eyes shifted to him except for Kitten Liam, too busy glaring at the door he probably wished he never invited Theo over.

McChatty gave him a fast once-over, approval heavy in both him and his Cor’s eyes, “I don’t know why you’re here…or how, tbh. But, I need you anyway.”

“See, at least someone does,” he snarked under his breath. Liam snarked something back, too soft for him to hear.

“No No. Don’t look at him. Look at me–there we go, handsome.” McChatty gestured to the three Pumpkins, mostly going back to the furthest left, all regurgitated bits of it, “Favorite Pumpkin. Pick one.”

“Well, if I had to choose…” His gaze skipped across the table, all three drawing his attention in different way. For the first time since he arrived, Kitten Liam actually tried to capture his gaze, every so often flipping back and forth to the farthest right. Theo smirked,

“Pick the right one and I’ll give you Liam’s number.”

“MASON!”

“What?!” Mason passed right over him, “I mean, let’s be honest, you’ll get it eventually, but he _clings _to that hard to get game. It’ll be damn near graduation before your first date.”

Mason made a valid point. Twenty-something more months of lackluster Tinder fucks? _Sign him not the fuck up._ He threw up a hand, silencing the back and forth between friends. Their breaths mangled in anticipation, weaving the room to a common theme: him. As it should be. Liam begged him not to do it, those clear blue eyes battling even the heaviest of shadows. “I choose Mason’s.”

“That’s now how it works. You have to tell him the number.”

He could feel his smirk blossoming into something genuine for the first time in awhile. “Why bother?” Theo filled the final distance between them, his rasping chuckle setting goosebump over Liam’s jawline. “When he’s already telling me yours.”

The last thing he heard as Liam was shoving him toward the door, sans signed receipt, was the last two numbers. Not entirely shitty after all. What do you know?

**Author's Note:**

> Lol Happy Halloween! What do you think Mason, Corey, and Liam's Pumpkins look like?
> 
> Yes, this is 100% based on a True Story, starring my roommate and the devilishly fine Stoner's Pizza Delivery guy. Only I hope Liam and Theo's story would have ended better than mutual ghosting three months later. Hahaha, low-key, she still talks about that guy...and he does not.


End file.
